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As with ROTJ in general, I’d love to discard it, but I begrudgingly accept it if only because so much of the post-ROTJ EU I love can’t exist without it.
A very wise and fair point. But I like the Luke and Leia dynamic. They didn’t need to end up together no one is suggesting that it just seems incredibly lazy on Lucas’s part.
Like the father Vader thing in Empire, it wasn’t well thought out. Lucas just sloppily retcons things and makes things up as he goes. He can pretend omniscience and it was always planned. It’s in the purview of the author to play god, and make their story however they want it. He mostly got away with it on the originals, but ran into problems on the prequels.
What did you find not well thought out about the father Vader thing? Luke living on Tatooine with the Lars? Even the original film in isolation, never established that Owen was Luke’s biological paternal uncle (or maternal). This includes supplemental material, where Lucas as early as 1976 and 1977 would give backstory details. Likely both Lucas AND Kurtz had both told the truth, though held back telling the whole story. Vader was either: Luke’s father Annikin who had killed the genuine Darth Vader during the backstory then took his identity (a ‘leaked’ idea, that may or may not originate with Kurtz, where Kurtz said Lucas told him this idea for the first film), or that Vader wasn’t a Skywalker or even a relative, but Luke was his (illegitimate) son all the same. Possibly Lucas didn’t lock down the Vader father twist to the well known version that we all know until as late as the writing process for JEDI (ROTJ), not EMPIRE (ESB), as we’re often told.
You’d have a lot more people with issues if there wasn’t a cult of personality surrounding the perfection of Lucas canon and by the Extension the EU. It’s all perfect and there are no issues with continuity. That is the opinion of the religious devoted to their sacred texts. But everything Disney does is not canon and can’t be worthwhile because Lucas sold the farm. I sort of halfway believe in the control of the author over their own works, or an established consistent world within the framework of their secondary universe. But I dislike the idea of canon because it reminds me of the Gospel tradition and how we got our New Testament. Which gospels are canon. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Gospel of Peter had a talking cross. That wouldn’t have helped it’s inclusion in the canon I would wager.
As far as the whole Leia as sister thing, the problem is that in ROTJ, her being Luke’s sister seems to be of no consequence to the larger plot of the film. She goes on being a Rebel leader likely the same as if she weren’t Luke’s sister. Her also being Vader’s daughter doesn’t seem to register to her at all. She merely sees Luke being Vader’s son as a cause for her to fear for Luke’s safety. That being said, many here - those who lament this aspect of ROTJ but think ESB was THE absolute best Star Wars film - seem to not notice that EMPIRE (ESB) had already marginalized Leia’s character. The whole political side to her character in the first film is gone. Her status as a leader of the Rebellion is pretty muted. Even her established adversarial relationship with Vader from the first film is mostly gone. The plot of the film doesn’t seem fit to take advantage of that or advance it any further (I know someone will bring up the wordless glance between Leia and Vader in the Carbon Freeze Chamber). Leia in EMPIRE was mostly about her feelings for Han on the one hand, and Luke on the other.
